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How to… Rediscover Enthusiasm, Step 1

With two months of 2012 just about gone, I’m sure everyone is still as excited about their New Year’s resolutions as they were when they set them at the beginning of the year, right? Wrong! Maybe you’re still as enthused, but I definitely am not. In fact, my enthusiasm has seriously waned, and I find myself feeling a bit sluggish. So, I decided to take steps to help rediscover enthusiasm. This week we will cover step one, Review and Revise, and next Wednesday we will cover step two, Do What Works.

Step One: Review and Revise

Take a look at the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Do you need to adjust any of them based on what you’ve done or haven’t done? Have you gotten off track with the purpose behind any of the goals? Maybe the goal doesn’t really mean that much to you after all, and it’s time to admit it and nix it altogether. Maybe just some tweaking is necessary.

For example, I recently found myself avoiding reading. For a person who loves to read, this was troubling. When I thought about my reading goals (I have several) and about why I choose to read as much as I do, I discovered the cause of my absent enthusiasm. Somehow, I had gotten myself wrapped up in reading what I thought I should read and reading just to get through the books. I wasn’t enjoying the books I was reading, and I had to force myself to complete them. So, I did something I rarely do. I stopped reading a book halfway through and picked up one I was enthused about. I’ve decided to read only what I want to read, which allows me to read for the joy of it and not out of some self-imposed obligation. This may mean resetting some of the goals I have for this year, but at least my enthusiasm is returning.

Taking time to deliberately and intentionally analyze your goals and objectives can help you decide whether or not you are truly working toward that which is meant for you to accomplish. Take the time this week to review and revise your goals. (Treat yourself to a latte while you’re at it!)

DISCUSSION: What did you discover when you took the time to review and revise your goals? What adjustments did you decide to make?

3 thoughts on “How to… Rediscover Enthusiasm, Step 1”

Retaining your enthusiasm is something I've been thinking about lately as well. A lot of it has to do with really digging dip into my motivations. It's something I have to spin around in my mind repeatedly to keep up my enthusiasm. And like you mentioned, allowing yourself to switch up your goals is helpful too. That's a big one for me, because I'm really good at setting incredibly lofty goals and then feeling like a failure when I can't live up to them.

I have made the mistake too many times of either setting unrealistic goals or ones that I really wasn't to thrilled about but that sounded good at the time. I also have goals that I have set and can't physically complete for some reason. I've always let my perfectionism condemn me in the past, and this is the first year I am refusing to do that. I am giving myself permission to be more flexible with my goals.. I just don't want to let feelings of failure defeat my anymore. I am not talking about making excuses for not reaching goals; rather, I am acknowledging that I can't always predict what I can and can't accomplish as well as the fact that I am sometimes wrong in a direction I choose.